


Gold Rush

by nikkiRA



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, Jealousy, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28203858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: Dimitri is so handsome that the ladies at the castle always giggle and whisper and squeal about him whenever he passes. Dimitri doesn't seem to notice, but Felix always does, and he HATES it. He's not willing to examine why he hates it so much, but it's DEFINITELY not jealousy.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 9
Kudos: 84
Collections: 2020 Dimilix Exchange





	Gold Rush

**Author's Note:**

> But I don't like a gold rush, gold rush  
> I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush  
> I don't like that anyone would die to feel your touch  
> Everybody wants you  
> Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you  
> \-- gold rush, taylor swift
> 
> this is my dmlx exchange fic for blu!! happy holidays!! thank you for your amazing prompts!! i wanted to write more of them but school got in the way

“-- And Judith wants to meet with you to discuss Daphnel and Galatea, she said she’d be heading to Fhirdiad after --”

Felix cuts off as they pass a group of laundry maids, who have stopped to curtsy at Dimitri. He gives them a nod and a nervous smile; he’d confided once to Felix that it’s a hard transition to get used to, going back to the castle and taking his place as King instead of living for battle. Felix had told Dimitri he didn’t need to acknowledge  _ every  _ single person who bows or curtsies at him, that they’re just showing respect until he passes and they can go back to what they were doing, but Dimitri still insisted on smiling or stopping to talk with everyone he passed. It makes him an excellent, well loved king, but a  _ very  _ annoying walking partner. 

As they continue down the hallway Felix can hear the girls burst into excited giggling, and he can catch a few squealed snippets of conversation:  _ handsome! Sooooo cute. Marta you can’t call the King of United Fodlan cute! Why not? He is!!!! _

Felix’s hand twitches unconsciously towards his sword. It’s a habit that’s going to get him in real trouble some day. 

“Felix?” Dimitri asks. “What were you saying about Judith?”

Felix scowls heavily, but he finishes what he was saying, excited giggling still echoing in his ears. 

* * *

It happens  _ all the time,  _ is the thing. They aren’t isolated incidents. It happens almost every time they pass almost any woman between the ages of ten and eighty, and some men, too, giggles and whispers and high pitched squealing that makes him want to disembowel something. Dimitri never seems to notice, or if he does he doesn’t say a word about it, even when Felix is seething.

He’s not sure why it bothers him so much when it doesn’t bother Dimitri, but it  _ does.  _ He lays in bed at night and grits his teeth and thinks about the words they use to describe their King,  _ handsome  _ and  _ cute  _ and  _ beautiful  _ and  _ sexy.  _ That’s the word that bothers Felix the most,  _ sexy.  _ Dimitri wasn’t sexy. Felix has seen him covered in blood and guts, has seen him dirty and unwashed, has seen him at his absolute worst, and sure, he’s better now. He meets with Mercedes weekly and Dedue had found a tea that seemed to help and he’s always well groomed now, as the King, hair shiny and smooth, old ratty eyepatch replaced with one embellished gold. Felix thinks about him in his full regalia, in the ridiculous cloaks and layers and crowns he wears that people see him in. There’s nothing sexy about that. They didn’t even know Dimitri. 

Felix knew Dimitri. The real Dimitri, not the kingly facade he put on for his subjects. He knew the Dimitri in a simple shirt and trousers, asleep at his desk when he should have been in bed or fighting Felix at the training grounds with a glorious look on his face or the way his shoulders were so broad beneath the thin material of his sleep clothes, the easy strength he carried in him, the intense blue of his eyes and the muscles in his arms and the way he towered over Felix and the strong lines of his body when he shoved Felix to the ground during training and -- 

He shakes his head. Why the fuck is he even thinking about this? Whatever, it didn’t matter. Dimitri wasn’t  _ sexy.  _ Objectively attractive, maybe, but -- 

Felix turns over onto his side and glares meaninglessly at the wall. The point was it was annoying, how everyone always acted, and it was hard to talk when people were squealing, and it always took twice as long to get anywhere because Dimitri stopped to talk to everyone. That’s it. That’s the only reason he’s annoyed. Dimitri’s looks had nothing to do with it. 

He turns onto his back, closing his eyes and determinedly not thinking about the fact that he’s hard, for some reason. 

* * *

The cold is starting to get debilitating, snow piling up outside doors as the temperature drops and drops, and Felix decides he needs to go back home now before the journey becomes too dangerous. 

He is discussing this with Dimitri (he’s off today -- a faraway look in his eyes, and he’s not quite paying attention, asking Felix to repeat what he’s saying a few times. Felix will have to talk with Dedue about this) when they pass a group of young girls, no more than thirteen at the oldest, likely daughters of castle staff. They curtsy and bow at Dimitri, but while most people keep their heads down and don’t make eye contact out of respect these girls gawk openly at him, and one of them nudges her friend mid curtsy and waggles her eyebrows. They all giggle; Felix doesn’t think he hates any sound more than he hates giggling. Dimitri smiles a little absentmindedly at them and they titter even more, sounding like a flock of birds had landed in the corridor. Felix is one thousand percent certain he was never that annoying at thirteen. 

“I need to go back to Fraldarius,” he says, grabbing Dimitri’s arm and pushing him down the corridor, ignoring the noises coming from the girls and the words that haunt his nightmares. “Before the snow makes the route completely impossible.”

Dimitri doesn’t say anything, just makes a little humming noise and continues to stare into space. Felix is starting to get worried, which always tends to manifest as annoyance, so he isn’t surprised when his voice is a little harsher than he had wanted. 

“Dimitri,” he says sharply, stopping in his tracks and grabbing Dimitri’s arm again to stop him. “Are you even listening to me?”

Dimitri blinks, looking down at Felix as if he’d forgotten he was there. “Yes, I’m sorry, Felix. I’m lost in my own thoughts today, I’m afraid. But I agree that you should return home before the weather makes it dangerous. I know it’s not far, but I still worry.”

Felix narrows his eyes. “Are you alright?”

“I’m --”

“Are you hearing voices?”

Dimitri’s voice softens. “No. I don’t mean to worry you. I assure you this is not what you think it is. I just find myself… distracted, today.”

“Distracted,” Felix says dryly. 

Dimitri looks at him in a way Felix can’t quite identify. “Yes,” he says. “Distracted. But I promise it is nothing more than that.”

Felix isn’t sure if he believes that, but he really does need to go home. The war hadn’t been over for that long, but he knew that he couldn’t leave his uncle in charge back home forever. Fraldarius men had been balancing the workload of their own territory plus their responsibility as right hand to the king for centuries. There was no reason Felix had to be in Fhirdiad so often, no reason why he couldn’t do what generations of Fraldarius’ had done and be the Shield of Faerghus from his own territory, coming into Fhirdiad only when needed. He knows because he’s been looking for a reason, but the only one he can think of is that he doesn’t  _ want  _ to, and he’s not willing to examine that closely to figure out why. 

He’ll be sure to talk to Dedue about Dimitri’s mood before he leaves. It won’t stop him worrying, but Dedue always watched Dimitri as closely as Felix himself did. 

Felix nods. “I’ll leave in a few days,” he says. Dimitri stares at a spot on the wall and doesn’t answer. 

* * *

Being back home is cold and lonely and dull. Felix is rude and snappish for the first few days, taking out his foul mood on the people around him, until Mags, one of the head cooks who had been serving the Fraldarius family for approximately six thousand years (if he had to guess) hits him over the head with a turnip and tells him to smarten up. He is so astonished that he gapes at her for a moment, only for her to brandish her turnip threateningly once again and tell him firmly that “I remember when you were a scrawny little crybaby who pooped himself. You used to cry every time I made you eat a vegetable. I’m not afraid of you, Your Grace. Now stop sulking.”

“I’m not sulking,” Felix says petulantly, still stinging from the shitting himself comment. Mags gives him a deeply unimpressed look and raises her turnip again, and Felix gets the hell out of there. He tries to be nicer after that, though, and even though he’s not super great at being nice he’s pretty sure he gets the point across, because everyone stops tiptoeing around him. 

He’s lonely, though. He doesn’t want to admit it, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. He’d spent so long surrounded by his closest friends that to be alone at his estate… he thought it had been annoying to have Sylvain close enough to come barging into his room without announcing, or to have Ingrid drag him away from the training grounds by his ear, but now that he is so far from his friends, walking through the hallways of the Fraldarius Estate with only himself for company, he misses those days. Not the  _ war,  _ obviously, but having his friends so close. He hadn’t realized just how much comfort he’d taken in them being there. 

And Dimitri… Felix missed Dimitri so viscerally it was near painful. He thought about him constantly, constantly worried about how he was doing and if he was okay, writing letters to Dedue demanding an update as soon as anything happened. Things would happen in his day and he’d turn to tell Dimitri, only to realize he wasn’t there. He hadn’t realized how close they had gotten after the death of Felix’s father, but now that they are separated Felix feels it like a missing limb. He doesn’t admit this, of course, not in any of his letters, although the sheer amount of them when he had never been that great at writing before might have been a tip off. 

He thinks he is handling this all fairly well though, all things considered, until he gets a letter one day from Ingrid that says:

_ Felix: _

_ This is your third letter in two weeks, and although I enjoy hearing from you so often I think it must be said: you need a wife.  _

_ Don’t throw this letter away, and don’t make that face. You’re clearly lonely, and nobody blames you for that. I’m not telling you to fall in love or start a family or anything, but someone to help you run your territory and keep you company. You can’t keep going back and forth between Fraldarius and Fhirdiad forever.  _

_ Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m just worried about you. Everyone’s a little lost now that the war is over, and I know this isn’t a good solution but I don’t want you to lose it up there all by yourself. I know you like being alone, but everyone needs someone sometimes. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help.  _

_ Love, _

_ Ingrid _

Felix stares at the word  _ wife  _ for a few moments before shaking his head. The idea of finding some random woman and marrying her just to give himself some company was absolutely absurd, but he isn’t angry at Ingrid for suggesting it. He would have been when he was younger, would have bristled at the suggestion and lashed out, but now he recognizes that she’s just trying to help. Something about living through a war and watching people he used to sit in class with be run through with lances or shot out of the sky makes you rethink some things. 

He’ll respond to Ingrid later; he had just been finishing up a letter to Dimitri when hers arrived. He signs his name at the bottom but then, before he seals it away, he adds a P.S:

_ Ingrid thinks I need to find a wife. Can you believe that? _

* * *

It’s a couple of weeks later when there is a knock on Felix’s office door, and one of the staff enters the room looking harried and stressed and says, “His Majesty has arrived, Your Grace.”

Felix looks up in surprise. “He’s what?”

“Uh, he’s here, Your Grace.”

Felix puts his pen down. “Motherfucker,” he says, but for some reason his heartbeat has sped up to unhealthy levels and he has a weird clenching feeling in his stomach, as if he’d eaten something funny. Maybe Mags was trying to poison him. 

When he goes to greet Dimitri he finds him still in the entrance hall, trying to carry on a conversation with a very scared looking maid, who does not seem to know what to do with the full weight of the King of Fodlan’s attention. The weird feeling in his stomach is increasing for some reason, and with horror Felix realizes that he is  _ smiling.  _ Really, genuinely smiling. What the fuck. 

“Dimitri,” he says, and when Dimitri turns to look at him the poor woman bows quickly and scurries away. “What are you doing?”

Dimitri’s face lights up when he sees him. “Apologies for dropping in with no warning, Felix. I was beginning to feel cooped up in Fhirdiad, and Fraldarius is not too far. I thought it would be a good… break.”

Felix narrows his eyes. “Are you --”

“I’m not sick,” Dimitri says with a slight laugh. “Although I appreciate that you are always so concerned. Thank you for always looking out for me.”

For some reason this makes Felix blush something fierce. “Whatever,” he says. “Is Dedue here?”

“Ah, no,” Dimitri says, averting his eyes. “He stayed in Fhirdiad to… keep an eye on things.”

He was acting strange, but it didn’t sound like a lie. Felix watches him for a minute, searching his face for something, but there’s nothing there, and eventually he says, “Alright. You should have written first, I would have had your room prepared.”

“Actually,” Dimitri interrupts, “I was wondering if instead I could stay in the room that I used to stay in.” He says this confidently, but Felix can tell that he feels silly asking it. He doesn’t have to -- Felix still hasn't moved to the Duke’s quarters, instead sleeping in the room he had been sleeping in his whole life. The thing is it wasn’t the Duke’s room to him, it was his father’s. He’s not ready to move into that position yet. He’s not at all surprised that Dimitri feels the same. 

“Yeah,” he says. “No problem.”

Dimitri smiles softly at him. “Thank you, Felix.” He sounds overly grateful, as if Felix had done something worth smiling about. It makes him feel uncomfortable.

“Go bathe and rest,” he says. “You can use my chambers until your room is set up. We can talk at dinner.”

Dimitri nods. “Thank you,” he says again, and when he passes Felix he grabs a hold of his elbow lightly. Felix watches him walk away and tries to figure out why his hands are sweating so much. 

* * *

There is a knock on his office door before dinner, and he’s unsurprised when Dimitri enters. His hair is soft and fluffy looking, and he is wearing simple clothes. Thinking back on it, Felix can remember King Lambert showing up at Fraldarius unannounced too, taking the time to unwind as much as a king ever could, walking around the estate dressed down, and one time Felix had snuck down to the kitchens late one night and found him eating chocolate pudding by himself. It’s as if Fraldarius wasn’t just the King’s Shield; it was his vacation spot, too. 

“Tell me the truth,” Felix says when Dimitri takes a seat across from him. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Dimitri says with a smile. “Truthfully. No voices, no nightmares. Or, no more than usual. It’s just… I am still adjusting to all of this.” He drops his eyes, smile drooping slightly. “I needed some time to breathe, and Mercedes says that overworking myself will be more likely to trigger another… episode. And I think I missed you, as well.” He says this with a small laugh, but Felix can’t respond. His heart is beating too fast again. Maybe he’s developing some kind of condition. 

“We should go to dinner,” is all he says, getting to his feet. Dimitri looks at him with some unreadable expression before he stands up, too. 

They don’t talk on their way to the dining hall, but it’s a comfortable silence. Dimitri walks lighter, has a spring in his step that hadn’t been there when Felix saw him last, and he is just about to comment about it when they pass a group of maids, who bow politely to Dimitri, and then burst into giggles as they pass. Felix can hear their whispers, and even though he knows what they’ll be saying he can’t stop himself from listening. 

_ “He’s so handsome! I wouldn’t mind being queen if it meant marrying him!” _

_ “Oh please, Gwen, as if he would ever look twice at you. A man like that is going to marry the most beautiful woman in the world, mark my words.” _

And for some reason he can’t quite explain, these whispers are his breaking point. He had put up with this nonsense in Fhirdiad, but this was  _ his  _ territory, damn it, and he was not going to listen to this in his own home. He whirls on the group of girls and watches as their eyes go wide. 

“You are in the presence of the King,” he says harshly. “Show some respect if you don’t want to lose your station.”

The girls all curtsy quickly and apologize profusely before scattering. Felix turns back to see Dimitri staring at him strangely. 

“Why did you do that? They weren’t bothering anybody.”

“They were bothering  _ me,”  _ he says. He can still hear the words bouncing around his head:  _ a man like that is going to marry the most beautiful woman in the world.  _ “Everybody says this shit whenever you pass, and it’s exhausting, and stupid, and I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

“Say  _ what?”  _ Dimitri asks, and Felix glares at him. 

“Don’t play dumb, Dimitri. You have to know that every woman you pass swoons and giggles and yaps about how handsome you are. I have to hear it everywhere we fucking go.”

Dimitri’s eyebrows pull together. “I haven’t noticed.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Felix says angrily. “It happens all the fucking time.”

“Truthfully, I have not noticed. I’m sorry.”

This only makes Felix even angrier, and he is trying to figure out what to say to this when Dimitri continues. “Why does it bother you so much, Felix? It’s harmless.”

Why  _ does  _ it bother him? It’s a question he’s been avoiding asking himself, because he’s pretty sure he knows the answer and he is trying very, very hard to avoid admitting it. 

_ The most beautiful woman in the world.  _

“It’s disrespectful,” he says through gritted teeth. “And unprofessional.”

Dimitri has the nerve to  _ laugh,  _ which certainly doesn’t help Felix’s mood. “Felix. When have you ever cared about being respectful  _ or  _ professional?” 

That’s a completely valid argument, unfortunately. Felix scowls. “I don’t understand how you can’t have noticed this.”

“I suppose…” Dimitri starts, but then he trails off, eyes drifting to the side, away from Felix. After a moment he seems to come to some decision, because he looks at Felix once again and says, “I suppose I just don’t notice anybody else, when I am around you.”

It feels like a slap in the face. Felix physically recoils, rocking back on his heels as if he’s been punched. Dimitri is still looking at him, and his fucking eye is so blue, and his shoulders are so  _ stupidly big,  _ and he is suddenly very aware that they are still in the middle of the hallway. 

He grabs Dimitri’s arm and yanks him through the first door he sees, which happens to be a broom closet, because Felix has the worst luck and the universe hates him. Dimitri’s big, warm body is far too close, heat radiating off of him, and Felix has to crane his neck to look at him. But he fumbles for the light, anyway, grabbing at the wall until he finds the oil lamp and turning it up so he can better see Dimitri, which is a bad idea, in hindsight, because they’re  _ really fucking close  _ and Dimitri is so  _ motherfucking big  _ and he is looking at Felix with an expression so soft and tender that it should be illegal, frankly. Felix almost turns the light back down to get away from it. 

“You can’t just  _ say  _ shit like that,” he hisses. 

“Why not?” Dimitri asks, which is so completely ridiculous that Felix can’t even come up with a reply, just sort of gapes at him like a fish. “It’s true,” Dimitri continues. Felix is really beginning to regret pulling them into this closet. He is about to open the door again and storm out when Dimitri grabs his elbow and pulls him slightly closer, so Felix can feel the entire length of his body pressed up against his own. It’s very fucking distracting. 

“Felix,” Dimitri says, voice unbearably soft. “Why does it bother you so much?”

“Does it matter?” He shoots back. 

“Yes,” Dimitri says seriously. “You lost it on those girls. I want to understand why it bothers you so much.”

“I told you,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’s --”

“Felix,” Dimitri says, and his voice is still soft but there’s an underlying hardness to it, and Felix is reminded that this is not just his oldest friend, this is the  _ king,  _ and Dimitri is a damn good one. “I would ask that you tell me the truth.”

But how is he supposed to tell the truth when he can’t even admit it to himself? How is he supposed to tell the truth when he’s been ignoring every beat of his heart?

How is he supposed to admit that he’s jealous when he refuses to think about  _ why? _

“Felix --”

“Why are you here, then?” He says, turning it back on Dimitri and deflecting in the most obvious way. “Why didn’t you write first? You’re not being honest with me, either, you just show up here without any warning, and you keep zoning out. You think I can’t tell when you’re hiding something? You think I don’t know you?”

Dimitri gives a sort of half smile. His hand is still on Felix’s elbow. “Mercedes did say that I needed to take breaks and avoid pushing myself too far,” he says. “But I confess that the reason I decided to was… well, your letter,” he says. “Your last letter.” Felix can see pink spreading up Dimitri’s neck and across his cheeks, and he realizes that Dimitri is  _ blushing.  _

“What about my letter?” He doesn’t even remember what he had said in his last letter, but he’s pretty certain that he hadn’t said anything that warranted an unannounced visit from the king. 

Dimitri can’t seem to make eye contact. “What Ingrid mentioned to you… I suppose I wanted to, to see. If you were… considering it.”

Felix thinks back to what Ingrid had said, and then he says, in utter disbelief, “You came here because you wanted to know if I was planning on getting  _ married?” _

Dimitri laughs self-consciously. “I suppose I did, yes.”

“I -- why?”

“I was… jealous, I suppose.”

Felix is hearing these words, but they aren’t making any sense to him. Why would Dimitri care if Felix got married? Why would he even think that Felix wanted that? And what the fuck did he mean by  _ jealous? _

Dimitri is still talking, clearly trying to fill the silence with something. “I don’t mean to put this on you so suddenly, and of course I am not -- I will support you whatever you choose, even if it is to get married, and -- no, this is coming out all wrong. Dedue said I should write you first, I should have listened to him.” He laughs nervously. “And now I’m rambling. I’m sorry, Felix, I should have better planned this --”

Felix really, really needs him to stop talking so he can sort through all the thoughts swirling around in his mind -- so he arches up on his toes and kisses Dimitri to shut him up. 

There are probably, in hindsight, better ways to shut someone up, but this works pretty damn effectively. Dimitri wraps his strong arms around Felix’s waist and hoists him up even closer. Felix has never kissed anyone before, because he’s never particularly wanted to, but Dimitri’s lips are soft and his arms around him make Felix feel safe, and he thinks about every man, woman, and girl who had made comments about Dimitri and he thinks  _ ha. _

And then he thinks, oh. That’s why he was so annoyed. 

Dimitri’s hand slides up Felix’s back and into his hair, his tongue licking across Felix’s lower lip. It should be gross, but it’s not, and Felix opens his mouth, tries to get even closer as he wraps his arms around Dimitri’s neck. He pushes against Dimitri, who stumbles slightly backwards until his back hits the wall, and Felix is debating the merits of losing his virginity in a broom closet when something clatters down from a shelf above them and hits him on the head. 

“Ow,” he says, pulling away from Dimitri and glaring down at the bucket that had fallen. Dimitri smooths a hand over Felix’s head. 

“Are you alright?” He asks. Felix looks above his head at the shelf, which has detached from the wall on one side and is hanging precariously. 

“You broke the shelf,” he says. Dimitri looks up and then moves them both away from it. 

“My apologies,” he says faintly. “I will -- I’ll fix it.”

Felix looks at him. Dimitri looks nervous, as if he’s afraid Felix will be angry, as if they hadn’t just been heavily making out in a closet. Felix still has his arms looped around Dimitri’s neck. 

He says, “I don’t want to get married.”

Dimitri says, “Oh. Okay.”

Felix says, reluctantly, “I guess I was… jealous. Of those people.”

“You have no reason to be.” Dimitri touches Felix’s cheek gently. “I have never noticed any of them.”

They continue to stare at each other. What are you supposed to say after you kiss your oldest friend who you hated for a few years and he’s also the king of the entire country? In a broom closet? Is he supposed to tell Dimitri that he loves him? Are they supposed to  _ discuss  _ this?

“We were going to eat dinner,” is what he ends up saying. Dimitri looks at him for a moment before his face breaks out into a smile that lights the room up far better than the oil lamp does. 

“Yes, I suppose we were,” he says. Felix finally lets go of him, but before Dimitri can open the door he kisses him one more time. 

At dinner, he can’t stop smiling. It’s really fucking annoying. 

* * *

The next time he’s in Fhirdiad, he hears giggles and whispers when he and Dimitri pass a group of women. Dimitri looks at him, but Felix ignores it, and when they turn a corner into an empty hallway, he slips his hand into Dimitri’s. 

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @felixfraldaddy


End file.
